Floatinghead's ramblings about music and music-related themes interspersed with various interludes and home of Cabeza de Vaca radio show on Scanner FM, Barcelona.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Jannick Schou - Act of Shimmering

More goodness from Experimedia, this time the album "Act of shimmering" from Dannish tape loop drone meister Jannick Schou. His latest lp comes off the back of several singles and a couple of self-released albums from last year. The press release describes this as "an ethereal dream using nightmarish parts and images". This is a more than adequate description of the coruscating and redemptive sounds on offer. There are certain similarities to the Black Swan releases from earlier this year in terms of the palette: darkly sculpted, but liberating washes of noise and quieter ambience, but the effect here is more poised on the balancing point. Whereas Black Swan dragged you down or ripped you apart from the inside out, Schou leaves you shimmering on the brink, caught between liberation and demise as the positive emotional sensations of the shadowy and negative sounds find their equilibrium.

As well as praise for the musicians here, it is worth congratulating Experimedia for the quality of the audio on each release. Maybe it is the mastering, usually by Taylor Deupree, but this time Lasse Marhaug which gives the music such an enveloping and/or elemental quality.